Plans for a Ghost Ship TV show are off after criticism from victims’ families, author says
Two Bay Area authors are dropping their plans for a television show or movie about the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire after an outcry from the friends and family members of people killed in the 2016 blaze.
A fictionalized production about the Oakland fire that killed 36 people was among several projects acclaimed Berkeley authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman said they planned to develop as part of a multi-year deal with CBS Television Studios that was announced Tuesday.
But the idea prompted a swift backlash from many who lost loved ones in the fire, and Waldman said Saturday that she and Chabon would not pursue the idea.
(1/6) We believe in the power of art, and specifically of this medium, to effect change, and had hoped to harness that power not just on behalf of the victims of tragedy at the Ghost Ship, but also to help to call to account those who most bear responsibility for it.
— Ayelet Waldman (@ayeletw) December 14, 2019
“We’ve heard from parents of the victims, from friends and survivors, and from conscientious members of the community, appealing to us to reconsider telling the story of the Ghost Ship,” Waldman wrote in a series of tweets Saturday afternoon announcing the decision. “These appeals have been heartbreaking to hear, and they have changed our minds.
“We will not be proceeding, and will do our part to leave the families and survivors to their grief and their loss, in the fervent hope that someday they find not just comfort but also a measure of justice.”
Critics of the idea had charged that a fictionalized account would exploit the memories of the people who died in the blaze.
“They are not an ensemble cast, they are our dead friends,” said Max Altstadt, a former Oakland resident who lost friends in the fire.
Others objected that it was too soon to tell the story of the Ghost Ship. The project was announced just after the third anniversary of the fire, and comes as victims’ families prepare for a civil trial against the city, PG&E and the building owners, and the separate criminal retrial of the warehouse’s master lease-holder, Derick Almena. Both trials are set to begin next spring.
As criticism mounted, Waldman had indicated that she and Chabon were reconsidering the Ghost Ship idea, which she wrote Wednesday was “in the earliest stages of development.”
The deal Waldman and Chabon inked with CBS gives the network exclusive rights to produce television content created and developed by the husband-and-wife team. Among its less controversial pieces was a commitment to adapt Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2000 novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” with Chabon and Waldman working as writers, executive producers and showrunners.
Waldman and Chabon would not have been the first to try to adapt the Ghost Ship tragedy for television. Just three months after the deadly blaze, NBC’s “Chicago Fire” aired a ripped-from-the-headlines episode inspired by the Ghost Ship, which was sharply criticized.
Staff writer David DeBolt contributed reporting.